Take Two on Inmagic DBTextWorks

Take Two on InMagic DB/TextWorks

Susan Fingerman, Principal

SMF Information Services

In 1994 I was asked to create an online database/catalog for a large non-profit organization. Luckily we chose the right program at the right time – InMagic. InMagic was exactly the right fit for the job. As the organization’s database progressed from internal use only to the Internet to its Intranet, InMagic also progressed from DOS to Windows to WebPublisher to ODBC compliant (coming).

Making Choices

We were faced with several specific parameters when database development began in 1994. The types of materials for the database were diverse – books, videos, and vertical file material. These materials were easily handled by software, although challenging for the cataloguer since we wanted a single database that would have fields applicable to all these types of materials. More challenging was the organization’s need for online images and dial-up access from remote offices. In the end it was InMagic’s handling of images (this was before HTML, remember!) that determined the decision. Of course, cost also had something to do with our choice as well. Remember, this is a non-profit and InMagic, then as now, gives you the most bang for the buck of any system with similar features and capabilities.

Custom Made

InMagic is not for the faint of heart. I myself have a love-hate relationship with the product, depending on what I want to do at the time. It’s non-relational. This means that to use it as an integrated library system, fields must be linked, data must sometimes be exported and imported ad nauseam, and, in the end, you do not always get exactly what you want. For data input and output there are, of course, default screens, but these are extremely basic and unattractive. You’d definitely want to customize them, at least for displaying and printing records by users. And in that word, customize, lies the beauty and the beast of this product.

You can create or customize your own everything -- fields (indexed by word or phrase, unindexed, constant data, automatic, calculating, validation etc.), data input forms (or skeletons), output forms (on-screen reports, printing, headers, sorting), etc. But you should be aware that your choices all have ramifications which you should investigate and understand before you create your database.

InMagic is not tied to the MARC format in any way, which was a lovely characteristic for me. However, to give the non-profit organization’s catalog a jump start, we did use an off-site cataloging service that created the records in MARC format. We then used a MARC Importer software from InMagic to bring these records into the catalog in the correctly fielded format.

Getting Help

InMagic Textworks can be quite intimidating. If you are a new user of this product and are not technically savvy about databases, my recommendation is to take a training class. These are available from local independent resellers or from InMagic itself at conferences or at InMagic in Massachusetts. There are so many things to think about that I believe InMagic’s manual can’t really show you the whole picture. At the non-profit, we had the local reseller come in for a day of consulting to discuss our fields with us, show us the cause-result of how we set up the database, and give us tips and clues that sure weren’t in the manual. Remote tech support also was not satisfactory for our initial questions, nor was the increasingly helpful web site FAQs and Knowledgebase. One very helpful source, the InMagic listserv for software owners, was not in existence when we started out, nor was the increasingly helpful web site FAQs. Another wonderful resource for those putting their database on the Web or an Intranet is many sample sites that are now out there. Look at Andornot Consulting Inc. for many links to these sample sites. The InMagic Web page also links to some helpful examples. Use the "view source" feature of your browser to see how these databases are coded.

In the End

At the non-profit, we have used InMagic for departments other than the library. For example, the communications department has a database for their AV material, clippings, and photos. In this database each type of material has its own specific fields, such as AV quality, authors/photographer for clippings and/or photos, copyright source fields for all, etc. Each type of material has its own display screen, so that when you choose a clipping you set your display screen to clips. This does require a bit of activity on the part of the end user, which is another drawback of InMagic. If these were all discrete databases there could be default output forms appropriate to each material type; however we kept it as one so there could be cross-material searching by subject.

Back in the library, we have been able to create all kinds of forms for different output reports, depending on what we need, i.e., numbers and types of items entered during a specific time frame, lists of titles alone with id numbers, lists of titles with their subjects only, etc. It is possible to generate reports with any combination of fields. Just be sure that the fields are indexed and therefore searchable. I understand from the listserv that others use the software for routing lists, reference request forms, serials check-in, and accounting reports. There really are endless possibilities, if you’re willing to put the time and effort into creating them.

Users are also able to create different query screens on the fly, by clicking on the +(plus) icon and adding any of the indexed and searchable fields to their screen. The browse feature is particularly powerful, and has led us to use both acronyms and the full spelling for many organizations to be certain they show up in the browse lists as appropriate.

It is not terribly easy to copy the validation lists for the several databases I’ve created. Every time we want to change these we must re-index the database, which can take a while if you have a lot of records. It is also not easy to copy these from one database to the another. This is true of the subject lists as well, which are not dynamically generated, so that every time we change the capitalization of an existing term or anything else about that term we must re-index. Maintaining authority files gets to be a bit of a nightmare for me. Maybe others know how to do it more easily.

One final tip -- we use both the Textworks product and the SearchWorks read-only product. Textworks is for catalog/database maintenance only, so we have different user licenses for each. Both of these can be password protected, etc., but I didn’t want the read-only users to even SEE the word "maintain" at the top of their screen. Both use the same underlying data and there is no extra maintenance, just cost, in having both software packages.

InMagic has just come out with v.3 of both Textworks and WebPublisher. This includes spell checking (YAY!) and the ability to avoid the "windowing" problem of screens (mentioned by Nina Platt in her November ILSR article) which was an annoyance in the older version.

InMagic Textworks has my vote for a cost-effective, flexible solution for mounting a database complete with images, hypertext links, and the capability to use your limitless imagination.

Susan Fingerman, principal of SMF Information Services, is a former editor of The CyberSkeptic’s Guide to Internet Research and consults with organizations on information resource management and online research and training. She can be reached at smfinfo@erols.com.

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